Santana Debuts, Throws Two Innings

Johan Santana made his Spring debut with the Mets today after missing over a year with a torn anterior capsule injury.

Facing the Cardinals, Santana pitched 2 innings, allowing no runs on 1 hit, 1 walk, and no strikeouts. He tossed 29 pitches, 17 of which were strikes.

He struggled with his command, especially with his cutter. His fastball was around 87-88 MPH, touching 90 once, albeit on a pitch well out of the strikezone. During his time with the Mets, Santana’s velocity hasn’t been much better during early Spring Training games than that, so there may be room for improvement.

His changeup remained about 10 MPH slower than his fastball. If he can keep up that differential, he should be effective.

The most important takeaway from this game is that Johan’s shoulder appears to have made it through this test unscathed. Now we’ll see how well he recovers from this start, and how he will be able to ramp up his pitches and innings throughout March.

Paul is a freelance writer, blogger, and broadcast technology professional residing in Denver. A New Jersey native, he is a long-suffering Mets fan, a recently-happy Giants fan, and bewildered Islanders fan. He's also a fair-weather Avalanche and Rockies supporter. In his spare time, he enjoys the three Gs: Golf, Guitars, and Games.

Maybe it’s just the camera angle from the ESPN clip, but his motion looked different to me. Looked like he was throwing across his body more.

Not striding as much, or striding a little toward first base instead of opening up square to the plate, or maybe he’s on a different part of the rubber? I don’t know, but I’m curious to see what y’all think.

AngeloMarch 7, 2012 at 7:36 am

The game was really fun to watch , Santana pitched well, but more important, just to see him on the mound make me Scream GO METS in front of my Computer . His healthy alone will make a huge impact .